The Election of 1992

After a series of last-minute changes, the electoral system
for October 1992 was a compromise combination of single-member
districts and proportional voting by party lists. To give
regional parties a chance to gain representation, separate party
lists were submitted for each of ten historical regions of
Georgia. In a change from the 1990 system, no minimum percentage
was set for a party to achieve representation in parliament if
the party did sufficiently well regionally to seat candidates.
Forty-seven parties and four coalitions registered to participate
in the 1992 election. For the first time, the Central Election
Commission accepted the registration of every party that
submitted an application.

The largest of the electoral alliances, and one of the most
controversial, was the Peace Bloc (Mshvidoba). This broad
coalition of seven parties ranged from the heavily ex-communist
Democratic Union to the Union for the Revival of Ajaria, a party
of the conservative Ajarian political elite. Ultimately, the
strong programmatic differences among the seven parties would
render the Peace Bloc ineffective as a parliamentary faction. The
Democratic Union filled as much as 70 percent of the places given
the coalition on the party lists. In the 1992 election, the Peace
Bloc draw a plurality of votes, thus earning the coalition
twenty-nine seats in parliament.

The second most important coalition, the October 11 Bloc,
included moderate reform leaders of four parties. Members
typically had academic backgrounds with few or no communist
connections, and the median age of bloc leaders was about fifteen
years less than that of the Democratic Union leadership. The
October 11 Bloc won eighteen seats, the second largest number in
the 1992 election.

A third coalition, the Unity Bloc (Ertoba), lost two of its
four member parties before the election. Many of the leaders of
the Liberal-Democratic National Party, one of the two remaining
constituent parties of the Unity Bloc, were, like the leaders of
the Democratic Union, former communist officials who continued to
hold influential posts in the Georgian government and mass media.
Both the Peace Bloc and the Unity Bloc put prominent cultural
figures at the top of their electoral lists to gain attention.

Shevardnadze's actions were crucial in building the
foundation for the 1992 election. From the time of his return to
Georgia, Shevardnadze enjoyed unparalleled respect and
recognition. Because of his unique position, the State Council
acted to separate Shevardnadze from party politics by creating a
potentially powerful new elected post, chairman of parliament,
which would also be contested in the October elections. Because
no other candidate emerged, Shevardnadze was convinced to forego
partisan politics and grasp this opportunity for national
leadership.

The elections took place as scheduled in October 1992 in most
regions of the country. International monitors from ten nations
reported that, with minor exceptions, the balloting was free and
fair. Predictably, Gamsakhurdia declared the results rigged and
invalid. Interethnic tensions and Gamsakhurdia's activity forced
postponement of elections in nine of the eighty-four
administrative districts, located in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and
western Georgia. Voters in those areas were encouraged to travel
to adjoining districts, however, to vote in all but the regional
races. Together, the nonvoting districts represented 9.1 percent
of the registered voters in Georgia. In no voting district did
less than 60 percent of eligible voters participate.

An important factor in the high voter turnout was the special
ballot for Shevardnadze as chairman of the new parliament; a
large number of voters cast ballots only for Shevardnadze and
submitted blank or otherwise invalid ballots for the other races.
Shevardnadze received an overwhelming endorsement, winning
approximately 96 percent of the vote. In all, fifty-one of the
ninety-two members of the previous State Council were elected to
the new parliament. The four sitting members of the State Council
Presidium (Shevardnadze, Ioseliani, Sigua, and Kitovani) also
were reelected.

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